[Colloquium] [CDAC] Feb 8th: Brian Christian - "The Alignment Problem: Machine Learning and Human Values"

[Rob Mitchum]

*CDAC Distinguished Speaker Series*

*Brian Christian*
*Journalist/Author*

*Co-presented with the Mansueto Institute for Urban Innovation*

*Monday, February 8th*
*3:00 p.m. - 4:00 p.m.*
*Zoom (RSVP for login
<https://www.eventbrite.com/e/cdac-distinguished-speaker-series-brian-christian-journalistauthor-tickets-129941567727>)
or YouTube <https://youtu.be/Uo02ri57uxE> (no registration required)*


*The Alignment Problem: Machine Learning and Human Values
<https://cdac.uchicago.edu/events/cdac-distinguished-speaker-series-brian-christian-journalist-author/>*
With the incredible growth of machine learning over recent years has come
an increasing concern about whether ML systems’ objectives truly capture
their human designers’ intent: the so-called “alignment problem.” Over the
last five years, these questions of both ethics and safety have moved from
the margins of the field to become arguably its most central concerns. The
result is something of a movement: a vibrant, multifaceted,
interdisciplinary effort that is producing some of the most exciting
research happening today. Brian Christian, visiting scholar at UC Berkeley
and author of the acclaimed bestsellers The Most Human Human and Algorithms
to Live By, will survey this landscape of recent progress and the frontier
of open questions that remain.

*Bio*: Brian Christian is the author of The Most Human Human, which was
named a Wall Street Journal bestseller, a New York Times Editors’ Choice,
and a New Yorker favorite book of the year. He is the author, with Tom
Griffiths, of Algorithms to Live By, a #1 Audible bestseller, Amazon best
science book of the year and MIT Technology Review best book of the year.

His third book, The Alignment Problem, has just been published in the US
and is forthcoming in the UK and in translation in 2021.

Christian’s writing has been translated into nineteen languages, and has
appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Wired, The Wall Street Journal,
The Guardian, The Paris Review, and in scientific journals such as
Cognitive Science. Christian has been featured on The Daily Show with Jon
Stewart, Radiolab, and The Charlie Rose Show, and has lectured at Google,
Facebook, Microsoft, the Santa Fe Institute, and the London School of
Economics. His work has won several awards, including fellowships at Yaddo
and the MacDowell Colony, publication in Best American Science & Nature
Writing, and an award from the Academy of American Poets.

Born in Wilmington, Delaware, Christian holds degrees in philosophy,
computer science, and poetry from Brown University and the University of
Washington. A Visiting Scholar at the University of California, Berkeley,
he lives in San Francisco.


*Part of the CDAC Winter 2021 Distinguished Speaker Series:*

*Bias Correction: Solutions for Socially Responsible Data Science*
Security, privacy and bias in the context of machine learning are often
treated as binary issues, where an algorithm is either biased or fair,
ethical or unjust. In reality, there is a tradeoff between using technology
and opening up new privacy and security risks. Researchers are developing
innovative tools that navigate these tradeoffs by applying advances in
machine learning to societal issues without exacerbating bias or
endangering privacy and security. The CDAC Winter 2021 Distinguished
Speaker Series will host interdisciplinary researchers and thinkers
exploring methods and applications that protect user privacy, prevent
malicious use, and avoid deepening societal inequities — while diving into
the human values and decisions that underpin these approaches.


-- 
*Rob Mitchum*

*Associate Director of Communications for Data Science and Computing*
*University of Chicago*
*rmitchum at uchicago.edu <rmitchum at ci.uchicago.edu>*
*773-484-9890*
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mailman.cs.uchicago.edu/pipermail/colloquium/attachments/20210202/29b2a65e/attachment-0001.html>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: brian-christian-social.png
Type: image/png
Size: 456201 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://mailman.cs.uchicago.edu/pipermail/colloquium/attachments/20210202/29b2a65e/attachment-0001.png>